Extremists Undermine Latino Supreme Court Candidate

February 07, 2003|By Juan A. Figueroa Juan A. Figueroa is president of the Anthem Foundation, a health care foundation based in New Haven. His column appears every month. To leave him a comment, please e-mail him at jfigueroa@anthemfdnct.org.

Alberto ``Al'' Gonzales may be the first Latino to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. As President Bush's White House counsel, he has both the legal experience and the political dossier to be a top contender for the job. Word is that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist or Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will retire this year, giving the president an opportunity to name the first Hispanic American to the high court.

To reach this most coveted place in history, however, Gonzales will have to survive the spotlight glaring on him, particularly from the right flank of the president's party. The same Republican extremists who want to give conservative Miguel A. Estrada a free pass to the federal appeals court should not be allowed to choose who is a potentially qualified Latino Supreme Court candidate by pre-empting Gonzales.

Unlike Estrada (nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit), Gonzales does have a compelling personal story that resonates with Latinos in this country. Gonzales was one of eight children of Mexican immigrants who settled in Texas and who had never finished elementary school. In remarks he made during National Hispanic Heritage Month in 2001, Gonzales recalled patiently waiting for his father to return home from work every day, six days a week. He said his father worked harder than any person he has ever known. After graduating from high school, Gonzales joined the U.S. Air Force, attended the Air Force Academy and eventually realized his childhood dream by transferring to Rice University: ``At the age of 12, I got a job selling soft drinks at Rice Stadium. I dreamed of being a student there one day.'' Gonzales was the first in his family to go to college.

From Rice, he went to Harvard Law School. He became a lawyer in 1982 and went on to practice corporate business law for 13 years at Vinson and Elkins in Houston. He became the first minority partner at Vinson. While at Vinson, he caught then-Gov. George W. Bush's eye, becoming his general counsel in 1995. Thereafter, Bush appointed him Texas' secretary of state and later to the state Supreme Court. The president then brought him to Washington to be his White House counsel. Gonzales clearly has the president's confidence.

The close relationship between these two Tejanos may not be enough to elevate Gonzales to the job. Influential voices within the president's party have started a campaign to discredit Gonzales. They claim he is simply not conservative enough. Patrick Buchanan says Gonzales may be another David Souter. Justice Souter was appointed by President George H.W. Bush and is a disappointment to many conservatives because he is not in the extreme mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Recently, syndicated conservative columnist Robert D. Novak echoed Buchanan's concern when he said that conservatives were cautioning Bush not to commit a ``grave political blunder'' by appointing Gonzales to the high court. Some are beginning to call the attacks on Gonzales a whisper campaign, although the voices don't seem so hushed.

These attacks are familiar. They often happen to high-ranking, successful individuals of color in positions of real power. Similar attacks were made when Secretary of State Colin Powell was emerging as a leading figure in the Republican Party. Such attacks are an odious tool used to discredit people who don't meet the ideological agenda set forth by extremists in the Republican Party. The president should be leery of those who need to discredit the likes of Gonzales because they do not meet the far-right litmus test. That is nothing more than a flagrant attempt to curtail Latino power and influence. And it will surely affect one of Karl Rove's current obsessions: the Latino vote in next year's presidential election.

Alberto Gonzales needs to be vetted like anyone else being considered for such an important position. The Latino community is far from endorsing him. If the president does nominate him, a careful analysis will need to be done concerning his commitment to individual rights and civil liberties as a government official and as a Texas Supreme Court justice. He will need to respond to questions concerning White House policies to set up military commissions/tribunals, state-sponsored assassinations and other matters in which he has pushed the envelope on the law as the president's lawyer.

The packaging is nearly perfect for this potential Supreme Court nominee. Extremists within the president's party should not be allowed to pre-empt it.